Duo 21
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: It's after the war, and Heero has been living alone for a long time.. when Quatre arrives with a very big surprise. Hurtcomfort, romance
1. Chapter 1

Duo Twenty-One

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own gw. I do play with them.

Notes: I write lots of little scenes from their lives... I'm not good at cut and dried stories, beginning, middle, end. Life's not like that anyway.

The shop was not spectacular, dusty, a corner shop with old bits of computer equipment, mecha parts, stale coffee. In the far back sat a man, a soldering iron on one side and a small fan on the other. His hair was chocolate brown and his fingers moved over his keyboard with a sustained speed that would have made him more likely part of the equipment than the technician watching the store.

He was lean, a slender Japanese man with blue eyes and endlessly tousled hair. He was the only one in the store. There was nothing personal in his white shirt and black slacks, neat, impersonal, except for the hair band around his wrist, which was completely out of place.

The war had ended. It was old news and the flow of life had moved on. Heroes that just wish to be left alone are not very interesting.

A bell rang as the door opened and he looked up, blue eyes cautious, assessing, but not disturbed.

The man just closing the door wore tweed, his blond hair pulled to as neat tail at the nape of his neck. He took one step into the store, laced his fingers behind his back and rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, then back.

Heero ignored him. There were ghosts of the past that Heero didn't want.

His programming had faded with Dr. J's death, and even before that. He was not the perfect solider anymore. His chair squeaked as he rose and moved towards the counter. It was an experiment to see if someone who had known him would even know him now. "How may I help you?"

Blond eyebrows drew down and Quatre bit his lip. He was older too, a five o'clock shadow of light brown on his cheeks, his collar untied. "I'm looking for Heero Yuy. I'm an old friend."

Heero straightened, reached for a pen from the counter. That name was something he hadn't heard for years. It had never been his to begin with. When he'd made his new identity, he'd become Damien Maxwell. "I hope you find him," Heero said, feeling relief lift within him. He owed Quatre who he had been, and he didn't want to be that person anymore. He didn't want to be able to do anything Quatre might ask. When he'd fought Marimeia's people, that had been the end. He would never kill again. This lead to a bit of not wanting to things that lead to him killing.

Duo though had wanted to change the world. Duo had joined Preventers and he'd loved it. He'd been the kind of person who would jump into a burning bus to save a stranger. He'd been the kind of person that could make a plain living room into a night club. The world was the kind of place where a person could go to work one day, and not come home again.

It had been a new mafia, trying to hustle the space dock in New York. Duo had wanted peace and justice, believed in them, fought for them. He didn't come home. Heero had killed again. The JFK Space Dock was one of the most profitable and diverse stations on the planet, no crime to speak of, even three years later. Heero was impressive when he wanted to make a point.

Quatre looked hard at him, blue eyes narrowing. "It's really important that we find him."

"Maybe you should take out a classified. I understand many people who are looking for loved ones from the war do that." Heero said. It was silly, to deny who he was. He was sure Quatre wasn't stupid enough to really not recognize him, given that he'd really looked. Part of him wanted to know, very much what had happened, what had brought the nicest of them all out looking for a man on whom no crimes could ever be proved. Part of him just wanted to go back to the database he was repairing for the local laundry house.

"It's really important that we find him because we've found Duo Maxwell, and he needs him."

"What?" Heero blinked, mission parameters rising in his mind so quickly, all of it coming back. "Is Duo Maxwell alive?"

"Yes," Quatre said, reaching slowly into his pants pocket. "He is alive. Heero, I'm not here about anything that may or may not have happened after his disappearance. I am your friend."

"Tell me about Maxwell," Heero said, feeling suddenly very comfortable with wanting information, with gathering data for his planning.

"Heero, please, listen to me."

"I'm listening, Quatre," Heero said. "Tell me what happened."

"He was found two days ago in a derelict cargo ship, wearing his preventer uniform. He seemed unharmed, at first. The ship itself is a great anomaly. The atomic clocks on the ship think that it has been two days since he disappeared. There are fifteen deceased crew members, most of them suspects in the gang that Duo had been investigating. There are two other survivors." Quatre handed a folded paper to Heero.

Heero's eyes narrowed, but he reached for the paper. "Was it faster than light?"

"Trowa thinks so. Wufei believes such a thing is impossible. I don't really care, except that we find out how to help Duo. He was my friend as well, Heero."

The paper opened and there was a beautiful drawing of Heero in his sleep, very intimate, very true to life, each scar in the right place, even how he slept, except... it had the newest scars on Heero's body, ones that weren't there when Duo had disappeared. Not that Duo had ever seen Heero's naked body, other than needful wound tending. "Who did this?"

"Duo. He's done hundreds like it. He doesn't sleep, just draws. They're all you. He doesn't speak. He doesn't eat. Heero, I know you've built a new life for yourself, but please, come see Duo."

Heero gave a curt nod. Quatre sounded like he was asking a favor, and Heero wasn't sure how the blond didn't know that it would be more favor than anyone could ask for him not to come.

"I must tell the shop owner that I am leaving."


	2. Chapter 2

Duo 21

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Chapter Two

The trip to the hospital was a haze of memories, so vivid, of Duo's laughter and laying next to each other on the couch. He remembered touching Duo's braid and feeling the other sleeping pilot moan and move closer, as if touching that braid was touching a part of him, like his arm or his cheek.

They would have become lovers. In time. If Heero hadn't been so slow to become human again. Heero was sure of that.

And then, being human came back to him like his soul had suddenly dropped into 0 grav when he stood there in the door way to Duo's hospital room.

The braid was longer, trailing off the bed and he was more muscular, older than Heero had remembered him. A wisp of dark brown hair lay against his face, a little wavy from where it had been in the braid. The scrubs he wore were hospital issue, the kind a staff member might wear and he sat cross legged the way Duo hadn't since early in the war.

Memories are funny things, like time can bend and you're back where you'd been years before. A perfect soldier picks up a million details, doesn't question, just absorbs, and understands. It was the way Duo held the pencil, his fingers loose, relaxed, and Heero could remember, that morning, before Duo had left for work, how he'd held a pen so tightly, small neat script like... like he'd learned from coping down sharp fonts from a computer screen.

He wanted it to be true though, Duo sitting alive on a hospital bed.

"Duo," he said, telling himself he just needed more information, more research, that was all.

"Heero! Veris vadra minos kairs!" And Duo was off the bed, tangled in the sheet, pencils flying as he launched himself at Heero. A man's body, but a child's enthusiasm.

Heero was across the room, arms around the only person he'd ever let get really close to him, holding so close that he could feel the beating of his heart. Through the thin cotton of the hospital top, the iron fabric of his own shirt, there was no space, just beating heart to beating heart. How Duo held his pencil didn't matter! All that mattered was that he was here.

"You're alive, Duo, you're alive!" Heero lifted him off his feet and hugged him with all the intensity he could, being mindful not to crush him.

"Minos karis corian be sorette?" Duo said between kisses, lover's kisses not just would be lovers. "Minos karis?"

The language wasn't anything that Heero had ever heard or read before, and he'd read every language known to humanity, and then some. It wasn't a code, as it was spoke with inflection, word enunciation. "Where have you been?" Heero asked, pulling back just a little. Duo's eyes were the most beautiful eyes in all the world sphere, violet, blue, like the twilight sky that could only be seen from Earth. Heero had always thought that Duo carried just a little of Earth with him always.

Confusion showed in those eyes now, as if things were just beginning to make sense somehow. "Minos karis nar," Duo said, obviously some kind of negative inflection.

Greed. It's not something that any member of the human species is ever immune too. Heero could have had any of the things humans usually lust for. Power, Relena would have given Heero Peacecraft the world. Wealth, he had access to money in accounts from the war that could have bought him anything he could ever have wanted. Sex... that would never have been a problem either. What he wanted, almost the only thing he'd wanted other than peace, was to be loved and accepted by Duo Maxwell. What ever he didn't understand was greatly outweighed by what he did. This was Duo Maxwell and he loved him and was loved by him.

"Minos karis," Heero said, not knowing what it meant, but wanting the sadness to lift from his Duo from when he'd negated that phrase. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Heero let Duo move out of his arms and it was as if all his dark dreams and emptiness were gone when Duo smiled. To be in love with someone is a kind of insanity, sweet and very foolish.

Duo grabbed this pad and drew... three stick figures leaving the hospital, one with a pony tail, one with shorts and a tank top, one with a long swishing braid. The figures got in a car, the braided one driving, and then they arrived at a house, two stories with a rose bush.

The drawing gave Heero chills. It was.. something, like the strongest sense of deja vu he'd ever felt, like a whole life he knew he'd lived, but couldn't possibly have. "Quatre, we're leaving."

"Oh, Heero, I don't think that's a good idea. There are tests still."

"We need to go now. We can come back, Quatre. I wouldn't put his health at risk."

"He doesn't speak English," Quatre said, trying to sound reasonable.

"I need to go with him, where he wants to go. Do you know this house," Heero asked, holding out the sketch pad.

"No," Quatre admitted. "And you haven't worn spandex in a long time. Do you know the house?"

"I feel like I do, but I know I don't."

"Oh well, that makes perfect sense. Let's all run off and see how much trouble we can all get into! Just like old times."

"You can wait here, if you want. May I borrow your car?"

"Heero, there is no house to go to," Quatre protested.

"Well, then maybe getting out of here will jar his memory a little."

"Heero, there is no house to go to," Duo mimicked, doing a shockingly good impression of Quatre's voice.

While Heero and Quatre had been discussing plans, Duo moved close enough to lay an arm around Quatre's shoulders. It was charm, the way only Maxwell could really do it, grinning, wicked, and pickpoketing one blond's keys. If it had been an anime, Quatre would have turned into an angry hissing blond cat.. but he was an angry stalking blond cat following Heero and Duo out of the hospital.

Heero actually got the keys and drove, but Duo gave directions, and in about fifteen minutes they were at a house, just like the one in Duo's drawing. Seeing it actually frightened Heero. Nice house, well taken care of, empty, but it was like coming home.

"Quatre, please, find out who owns this house?"

Duo had left the car already though, running up the path to the door, where he found a key behind the shudder on the window, in a hidden chamber recessed into the frame. Grinning, Duo let them in, and it was almost as if it were a ghost house, a remnant of a life he couldn't have lead for Heero as he stepped inside. Quatre followed close beind, looking about as flustered as Heero.

"Heero," Quatre said, "You own this house. You and Duo. He bought it the day he died."

"He isn't dead though, is he?"


	3. Chapter 3

Duo 21

Chapter Three

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I love 1x2 though! And this story is mine, not that anyone else would want to take responsibility for it.

Warning: Short little chapter, completely hodgepodge mythology and science.

There was a clock in the house. It chimed. The sound echoed through the empty house, shivering the stroke of midnight throughout the house.

Heero and Duo lay on the floor of the bedroom, where the bed would have been in another world, Heero's coat laying over both of them, and Duo's eyes snapped open. Such a vivid violet, as if they were the only color in a black and white world. He pushed himself up, slowly, braid almost seeming as if it could tug him back down towards where his body and Heero lay.

Black silk sleeves hung in Japanese style from his arms, arms that were lean and muscular as he reached behind himself and drew the only other colored object in the spirit world around him. It hissed angry tension as he pulled the katana free of the scabbard.

Bare feet on the hardly used carpet, he rolled his shoulders, and waited. Still as death waiting for prey, he stood guard over Heero's slender sleeping form. Relaxed, calm, more deadly than he was in physical state, long dark braid hanging long and silent down his back, the very faintest hint of dark black wings held tight over his back like a shadow. If there had been any living person there to see, his eyes were smoldering rubies with the barest hint of calm amethyst remaining.

"You can't save him," a voice whispered, familiar, higher pitch.

"I beat you here! I got here before you did!" Duo yelled. "You only have twenty-one days, and every day I will be here to defend him!"

The figure which came around the door frame was mostly mist, slowly solidifying into a creature with a long golden brown braid, a small curved nose, large violet eyes, slender body, slight curve to her chest, the same shadowed wings. "He is a criminal. Sentence has been passed."

"This is not that Heero," Duo said, katana ready.

"This Heero possesses the same weakness as the criminal. The same events will come to pass. The council has decreed his death."

"I wouldn't let you," Duo said, drawing the sword back double handed over one shoulder. "I will defend him with alln my strength. Your mate is Heero too! How can you carry out this decree?"

"My Heero is angelic and a gifted healer. He would not do what your Heero did. If he had, I would have killed him myself, not nearly died trying to protect him. This one possess the same fault. Allow me to cleanse his soul."

"No! His soul will disappear as mine did. I can stop him. The same thing will not happen. I'll stop it."

They circled each other, two spirit wolves, well matched and balanced. "You can not stop what is in his soul. Many lives will be lost by not allowing this one soul free."

"But he'll fade," Duo said, "And I will not allow the last mortal Heero to fade."

"Fool! You think he loves you? You think he can love anyone? Let me carry out the decree or you will pay for his crimes!"

She slashed, over head, down at him and he blocked, spun and sliced at her. She dodged and ran up the wall, black wings spreading like the shinigami she was, her katana twinning into one in each hand as she fell down towards the sleeping Heero and Duo's body. Duo lunged, hit her hard and knocked her to the side and the two spirits rolled until the hit the wall, her above him, both spirit swords against his throat, flaming rage in her eyes.

"You can't kill me," he his, his voice warbling from the exertion of fighting in his spirit for, "I am not condemned."

"But you will be," she said, leaning close, their faces mirror images of each other. "Duo Maxwell of Ezrin, you should hope that I defeat you. If you are condemned you face much worse than what that mortal would face if his soul were cleansed. You are the me I could have been. Don't make me do this!"

"You wouldn't defeat me, because you love him too!"

She snarled, the blades burning at Duo's spirit throat, burning all the way through to his body, blistering pale skin. "You're a nothing! You're not me! Don't say you know how I feel. You come from a backwater world and you have power only because you saw me and you woke at the last minute. That you have power at all is accidental. Listen to me! I have known I was shinigami since my birth! I know what is true. Heero Yuy must die and you, pathetic as you are, do not deserve to be condemned."

"No, I saw that Heero became nothing when you killed him before. I will not allow that to happen with this Heero."

"That Heero chose that path. He chose annihilation because he could not bear what had done. Perhaps this one knew a you more than the last one. Perhaps he has not the anger. Let him face his judgment and see. You do not have the right to risk hundreds of thousands of mortal lives for the life of one criminal."

Spirit tears are the purest form of soul, liquid rainbow, and under her blades, Duo tried to bite them back, hold them in. "I will not let you hurt him."

"Don't be a fool," she said, "I'm trying to save him too. What will happen can not be averted while he lives. If it happens, he will fade into the annihilation. If he is cleansed now, he will be able to be reborn."

'I wouldn't let it happen! I merged this world with mine. I can fix it. I know what's going to happen. I wouldn't let what happened before happen again," Duo swore, and below them, the clock chimed the hour.

"You may know what happened, but you don't know why! Even the council doesn't know why and therefore, you can't stop it," she got out before she was gone, no more than a puff of judgmental smoke.

Shaking, his sword turning to mist as he crawled back towards his body, Duo knew what he was doing was right. He could save Heero. He would.

His body moaned softly as he lay back down into himself and Heero's arms tightened around him, holding him gently, so carefully. What had happened before... it wasn't Heero's fault. He reached up to touch Heero's face, caressing so very gently. "I love you," he whispered, knowing that even if Heero heard him, he wouldn't understand.


	4. Chapter 4

Duo 21

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, Coptic markers, or string theory, but as all of them are highly cool, I use them all a lot. Thank you Universe!

Chapter Four

He was a slender man in his late twenties, give or take. Dark hair, a deep chestnut color with lighter sun streaks, framed his face, hung down his back in a very long ponytail. He wore jeans that knew his body well, the strong legs now quite comfortable with Earth gravity. With one hand he set the wedge of wood up on the stump. Muscles rippled as he shifted the axe back and brought it down hard, making kindling.

Three winters running he'd done enough wood for his cabin and his neighbors It kept his mind off...things, off things he couldn't undo. He had long since lost the pale skin of a spacer. Besides Duo Maxwell wasn't really alone. He had ghosts.

Once upon a time enemies had come wi mecha and explosives. Then they got much more dangerous and stole the hearts of the ones a person loved dearest.

"You should put that axe in your leg, hit an artery," Heero's ghost snarled "You're not my Duo! I hate you!"

Duo flipped the ghost the bird and set up another wedge. 'You're not my Heero either and I right back at you, Shithead.' he knew the ghost would hear him.

He'd been a Preventer the last time he'd spoken and he and Heero had been working a missing person case. The suspect had been a government scientist. Duo didn't understand what the hell the creep had been trying or even wishing for. String theory, 'branes', dimensions - shit - he was a steel ran and a death god, but none of the school's they'd checked themselves into had gotten much past trajectories and lightwave mechanics. That last was likely due to needing to work with Deathscythe than pass some class.

If he'd learned more of something maybe he'd have been able to save Heero. On days when the ghost was really active not even chopping helped and it was only a matter of time until he could hear his own last words, "Heero! Stop! I love you!"

"You're only going to screw everything up. We just need this last one. Then everything will balance. I thought you loved me." The ghost didn't even sound like a ghost.

After not a word in five years, the sound of his own voice startled himself "I don't love you, Shithead. I love the real Heero. The one you made me kill."

"Killing's so easy, once you get started, isn't it?" The ghost kicked a bit of kindling and it actually moved. "But you understand how that goes, don't you Shinigami?"

The back door of the cabin seemed like it was light years away. Dozens of bits of kindling shook on the ground and Duo dropped the axe and sprinted towards the open door. The ghost always became stronger on the anniversary of Heero's death, but that was nineteen days away still.

Duo took the stairs in one leap and slammed the door just as a rain of kindling hit against his cabin wall. "Leave me alone! I'm sorry! Why can't I have my Heero back? Stupid universe!" He clenched his eyes shut and tried to force away the feeling that the world was going to end, end very badly, and it wasn't the first time.

Outside, the ghost was on his knees, a hand wrapped around some necklace at his throat, his face locked in a grimace, small pointy fangs showing. "Duo-shan-nar, I'm not going to make it back. I'm going to fail!"

Heero woke, a long lazy waking, which in itself was odd enough to make him think about it as an event. The pillow under his cheek still smelled of Duo, still just slightly off, but his Duo, nonetheless. People change with time, maybe. Sometimes. If they'd been through a lot and his Duo had been and come back from more than someplace.

Also slightly clinging to the air, sulfur lingered. Heero was sure it was sulfur and that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wanted everything to be fine, to be right, to be finished. No more war. No more killing. Just life and Duo. Maybe they could adopt a child, one of the orphans that Duo had always visited or maybe they could take in a whole orphanage. Something to keep Duo busy and far away from Preventers and any missions that Quatre might need help on.

Heero moved, sliding out of the bed with a predatory ease that was more like his war days than recent days. His body was hard still, the lines down his stomach smooth and deep, his arms no longer a skinny boy's but those of a man who could break bones when he wanted to. Not that he hadn't always been able to do that with the augmentation, but now he looked the part.

The scent of sulfur was stronger near the foot of the bed and the way the plush of the carpet twisted, the way the dresser was just slightly off center from when they'd gone to bed, Heero was sure that there had been a hand to hand melee between sleeping and waking. He hadn't done it, and if he had, he would have put things right, so that meant Duo had fought someone, or something.

Answers were prime on Heero's mind, but then he stepped into the hall and Duo's head leaned back from the kitchen. Grinning like sunshine that went all the way to violet eyes, chocolate eyebrows wiggled and Heero forgot all about questions and answers. When Duo ducked back into the kitchen, Heero ran, panicked that he'd be gone in the few steps it took to make it to the kitchen.

He wasn't though, and standing there in a baggy white tee-shirt, holding a plate of pancakes powdered white with powdered sugar and melting butter. "Shidae nicvin," Duo said, then bit his lip, "Good morning, Heero."

"Good morning, Duo," Heero said and those were the most beautiful words he'd ever said in his life. Impossibly happy, as if the very core of his being could twist and shift, fold in on itself and magically become new and bright. He would do anything to protect Duo, anything. He'd kill the whole world, anything if it dared hurt his love. "I love you, Duo Maxwell."

With one hand, Heero took the plate and moved it towards the counter. With the other he touched dark hair, fingers softly skimming over the living warmth that came from his Duo.

Duo melted into the embrace, arms going around Heero's neck, lips parting as the kiss began, soft and hard, speaking a language beyond words. Heero surveyed Duo's mouth, then owned it, mission accomplished and he would possess his love forever.

Note: I'll update soon! I promise, and I'll have a pic I did of Heero the ghost inked and colored tonight to put up on my journal at www(dot)velvetunicorn(dot)co(dot)uk


	5. Chapter 5

Duo 21

Chapter Five

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, alas, and if I did own it… it probably wouldn't be as much fun.

Quatre did not want to visit Wufei. First Duo's return, or this other Duo, Quatre wasn't sure, but no matter how unpleasant that was, it had all started with Wufei. It was a lovely day; the sun bright enough to make Quatre pull his sunglasses of the visorclip before getting out of his car.

Everything had gone wrong five years ago and the anniversary of that fiasco was only eighteen days away. Quatre hated that anniversary. Not only had Duo died, but the separation with Trowa had started that night.

Wufei had been in charge of security, with the highest clearances, privy to all the research. Quatre had put all his trust in him and for no rational reason, Wufei had loaned Duo to Preventers to catch black marketers. The most secure laboratories had been robbed and Duo had been murdered; Heero went insane.

There was even suspicion in Quatre's thoughts that Wufei had been selling Winner research. Whatever it was that Wufei had done, his mind had never been the same. Quatre was of the opinion that it was guilt over getting Duo killed. Wufei had been in love with Duo. Quatre knew this.

It was what Wufei knew that mattered though. Only Wufei knew what had really been going on in the laboratory which had been destroyed that night. There were too many parts, too many clues that were only in Wufei's head.

At the front desk, Quatre offered his wallet and id to the receptionist. "I'm Quatre Rabber Winner and I'm here to see Chang Wufei."

"Certainly, Sir," she said, "I'll let the third floor know you're on your way up. Mr. Chang is doing much better. Are you here to arrange transitional housing for him?"

Quatre took his wallet back, eyes like ice. "This is the safest place for the insane, Nurse. Let your superior know that you'll be leaving. There will be severance pay for you. Good day."

"Sir! Why?"

There was no response. No matter that he wished this problem had been Wufei's fault; the fault was his own. He was the one who had neglected his duties to spend time in more pleasurable pursuits. It was for the best that Trowa had left him.

It hurt, thoughts of Trowa. There would never be anyone who could fit inside Quatre's heart the way Trowa did. There were many nights where the nightmare was that it had been Trowa's turn at security and he had been the one loaned to Preventers. Then it would not have been Heero who had gone insane and killed those people. Quatre knew it would have been him if anyone had harmed Trowa. Gentle, kind, so quiet as if his soul were the deepest river, slow moving and Quatre longed on those nights, to call Trowa, even if only to hear his answering machine.

Trowa had married though. She was a nice woman, also in the circus and they had two children now. Quartre feared calling Trowa. The voice mail would say, "You have reached the Barton Family. We're happier than we've ever been!"

Trowa deserved to be happy. Alone in the elevator, Quatre wanted to go insane. He wanted to be Wufei, babbling about nonsense of alternative worlds and shinigami Duo's bent on killing Heeroes, nonsense about the death of all life in the entire universe. In universes. At least Wufei never did anything small, not even in his delusions. Not just the world was at risk, but whole universes. It must be nice to be so important that the Shinigami themselves come to whisper you warnings.

It wasn't industrial espionage. No. Wufei had been trying to save universes when he got Duo brutally murdered. And Quatre was just trying to have the moon over for tea when he didn't speak to Trowa for months.

He had photos of Trowa's children. Beautiful happy children.

It wasn't Wufei's fault.

But he did have answers. Now that Duo was back, or a Duo was back, maybe Wufei would have some kind of answers. Maybe Duo being back would bring Wufei back from the nonsense ramblings and the man would explain what had really happened that night.

This facility bore Chang's name, the Chang Sanctuary. There were few patients. While the security looked lax, just glass and indoor garden, the truth was darker. The patients here were special. Their bills paid by heads of governments, by some of the biggest corporations in the Earth Sphere. The best care, always. It was a beautiful sanctuary, and perhaps the most secure facility in the Earth Sphere. Quatre did not repeat mistakes.

Pausing at a railing which over looked a lovely green expanse of grass under sunlight brought in through fiber optic cabling, Quatre found Wufei. Hair longer, loose and midnight black that flowed as the former gundam pilot moved through graceful tai chi katas, balanced, precision, beautiful. He hardly looked deadly or deceptive. Perhaps he was really better.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in any of the reports that Quatre read regularly. Wufei had maintained the same story for five years. Thinking about the very strange Duo, who should have been brought here to this very facility, Quatre wondered if maybe he'd been wrong and Wufei had been right.

Suddenly, Wufei was pointing at him, his bare arm glistening with sweat, perfectly build as if a million katas could rebalance the universes, "I told you, Quatre, didn't I? It's going to get worse every year. We're all going to die."

"Duo's back, Wufei. He's alive," Quatre said, hands white knuckled around the railing, eyes locked with Wufei's.

The laughter that filled the garden was mad… completely mad.


	6. Chapter 6

Duo 21

Chapter Six

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, but I did find a very nice poster with Heero and Duo on it.

Chapter Six

Chang Wufei knew many things. None of them were things he felt like telling Quatre R. Winner.

It hadn't started out the way it was. The demon came to him, the perfect image of Duo Maxwell, and begged, promised anything, just don't let his doppelganger be in that facility on just that one night. Heero was obsessive about Duo. Duo would die that night, a very unpleasant death, and Heero would cause the destruction of the lab and what humans had labeled the big bang would happen all over again. Death so instant that there would not be time even for souls to cry out. It had happened before.

At first, Wufei did not believe his vision, the oddly frightening Duo Maxwell with sharp little canines and carved bones in his hair, a death god in all senses of the word. And then there had been the promise. The death god promised Wufei the heart of Duo Maxwell, the very same one that Wufei had always known. All he had to do was save the world by just saving Duo Maxwell's life.

At the beginning of his life, Wufei had been a scholar, just a lover of words and lore, history and ink on paper, the soft feel of a brush tip bending against paper. He'd never wanted to be a killer, a warrior. That had been his wife, the warrior. His clan with their honor. Losses of such intensity can carve scars into the soul so deeply into the soul that no matter of logic will move them.

Only fighting and the hope of love had ever soothed the raging grief in Wufei's soul. Duo's commitment to peace tore Wufei. They'd seen each other every day then, in the time before the end of hope. Duo, in his preventer's uniform, always laughing in the sunlight, soft brown hair brushing his face, violet eyes full of life that was Wufei's sun.

There was more than one way to save Duo. All he had to do was not be in that place at that time. The memory of their last conversation stood out so vividly.

"Duo, I have something which I wish to confess," Wufei had started.

Duo had such a child-like quality to him, as if somehow he'd just hidden within himself until it was safe to come back out. He smiled, tilting his head, a bottle of pop in one hand and remote monitoring device in his other hand. He was good at what he did, always. "Confessions, oh Wu, you think that's a good idea? Wanna hear one of my secrets first?"

"Sure." Wufei's voice had been soft, muted with the affection and hope.

"I'm in love with Heero, but you knew that? I'm gonna give him a house. You know, cuz he's never had a place of his own. Maybe he'll like that."

The nightmare always cut off there, if it were a nightmare. Now it wasn't a nightmare, but more of a goodbye memory. Duo Maxwell wasn't really back. It was that same fucking shinigami that had really only been trying to save Heero, promising lies and half truths to get his way.

Wufei had been to the room that exploded in other dimensions. Wufei knew what Winner's pet dogs had really been making. Pay smart people to build interesting things and well, you got interesting things.

"Why," Quatre croaked, voice rough and broken, masked under a slight Chinese accent. The man who thought everything was all his lay on the floor of Wufei's very Spartan and sterile room, dark hair fanned out around his head, dark eyes filling with tears only Quatre could ever really cry. "Wufei."

Wufei squatted down, moving like the martial arts master he was, even as he found the expensive slacks that Quatre preferred constricting. Quatre's body itself was constricting. "Wufei," Quatre's voice said, more smug than Quatre could ever really pull off. "That room, the one you were supposed to be guarding. It had very interesting artifacts in it. I'm sorry to have come and upset you, but it's time to finish things. You understand finishing things, don't you? It must be horrible to be insane, Quatre's voice said through Quatre's smiling lips. "You know that no one will believe you, no matter what you say. No matter what you say, no matter how you cry, I expect some strong orderly will just sedate you and maybe they'll even put you in restraints. Do you know how easy it is to forget someone who's all safely tied up? Wufei, I expect you should accept your fate. It'll be over soon. All the pain, fear, for everyone. Everything will start over. No more loss. Don't worry."

"You'll never get away with this," Wufei's voice said, his stunned body struggling against the pressure point strikes that had put him down. "Heero will stop you! He always has. you couldn't kill him before and you wouldn't now."

"What makes you think I want to kill him? Maybe I just want him to do what he was meant to do in the first place? Enjoy your safe little cage, Wufei."

Quatre's body stood and Quatre watched it walk away. "Stop him! Help me! He's stolen my body! Help me!"

"Mr. Winner," one of the orderlies asked as Quatre's body left the room. "Do you want me to put him to sleep for you?"

"No," Quatre's voice said, almost as sweet as it could be. "I want him to stay awake. Wufei was always wanting to be in control. I forget sometimes how very insane he is. How very dangerous."

"I'm so glad you weren't hurt. He's safe here. He can't get out of that room. Security level is already up. Not even a gundam could bust in here."

"That gives me such peace of mind."

"Mr. Winner, do you want me to have your car called? Perhaps you'd like to have one of the nurses look at that cut on your face?"

"Yes, that would be very nice."

The receptionist had not gone to tell her boss that Mr. Winner had fired her. He'd fired her, after all. He could bloody tell her boss himself!

She was sure she only had moments left before all her security clearances were pulled, so she typed as quickly as she possibly could. It was amazing what you could do when there was little left to lose. When one left Winner employ abruptly, getting another job was like trying to find money falling from the sky. With one senior orderly badge freshly made in her hands she locked up the whole computer system, sent it into a diagnostic routine that none could get it out of without killing the machine. She was going to see Wufei at least one more time.

Quatre lay there on the cold floor, the strange body too long, too lean, filled with hormones and emotions that weren't Quatre's. Hopelessness had already made this body home long before Quatre moved in. He wished he could save the world. He wished he could see Trowa's children, hear them laugh. He wished he would hear Trowa's voice one more time. All the years of protecting and trying to make the world right, it all felt so hopeless and empty now. When life closed in and there were no more moves to make in the game, all he wanted was for Trowa to be near one more time.

He missed the scent of him, missed the warmth of his lover, and his heart hurt too badly to even break. He'd ruined everything, absolutely everything.

When the door opened, the girl who walked in, the one he'd fired was the last person he'd expected to see. She cried out and ran to his side, kneeling down, "Wufei! What did that cold snake do to you! Oh god, I'm so sorry," she said, hands on his shoulders, as if she'd help him up without really knowing how. "I made him mad when he got here! Oh, Wufei, I'm so sorry. He fired me! The bastard!"

"I'm sorry," Quatre said, in Wufei's voice. "I'm really sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said, blushing a little as their eyes locked. Quatre pushed himself up. "I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Quatre said, smiling, feeling perhaps a little better now that he'd pushed himself off Wufei's floor. "Listen, can you do something for me? It's a very small something, but very important."

"I'd do anything for you, Wufei. I know he's just holding you here because he's a bastard."

"Please," Quatre said, giving her Trowa's contact number, "Please tell him that a friend who misses him said 'The roses are blue and I wish the circus would come home.' But it's important that I said it, me, Wufei. He'll think that Quatre said it, but please, let him know I said it. That's the very best way to help me."

"I'll do it! I promise. As long as I can get out of here without security catching me. I hope your friend can help you!"

"So do I," Quatre said, pulling his knees to his chest. "So do I."

"Barton House," a child said, standing on a wobbly chair.

"Hello, is your mommy or daddy home?"

"My daddy's home," the little girl said.

Trowa lifted her off the chair with one arm and pulled the phone receiver from her hands. "Hello, this is Trowa."

"Trowa! Wonderful! I'm a friend of Chang Wufei's and he has sent you a message. He's in terrible trouble too."

"What did he say," Trowa asked, voice cold.

"That 'The roses are blue and he wishes the circus would come home.'"

"Chang Wufei said this?"

"Yes. That bastard Winner had been to see him and left him laying on the floor. I think that blond ice snot beat him! He was crying and so very upset. I promised him I'd tell you. Will you help him?"

"I'll help him," Trowa promised. "If you see him again, tell him 'the circus never left home and the clone was all that mattered.' He'll understand, if things are as I think."

"Daddy," the little girl giggled at her daddy's funny words as she gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

Trowa's wife, Li, leaned against the door, not in the least upset, pleased, perhaps. "So the rose finally got blue? Took him long enough."

"It's not just that he wants me back," Trowa said pinching his step-daughter's nose lightly. "Something's really wrong. I think Q's in very deep trouble and it has something to do with Duo being back, and Heero."

"You'll fix things. You always save your friends."

"I'll bring Q back, if I can. It's time for him to do something else with his life, perhaps."

"Well, give me the little blond brat," Li said with teasing affection, "And get out of here before my wife finds out we're losing our cover story."

Trowa smiled, gave her a graceful bow.. and the Circus was on it's way home.


	7. Chapter 7

Duo 21Chapter 7

by Nix Winter

Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing and I wish the entire franchise all the best. I do own the world concept I'm cooking up here and it's subject to inhabitance by many creatures, both good and bad.  
http/www(dot)deviantart(dot)com/deviation/38207089/ pic of angelic Duo

Chapter Seven

Disbelief colored Duo's voice as he shifted from foot to foot where he crouched on the old wooden kitchen chair, a long neck bottle of beer held in both hands. "So... You're saying there's thousands of me - don't tell the other Heero's. I'm not sure he could deal. But also there are thousands of you's and everyone. Like different 'branes' and this is all nice probable science. And if I hadn't shot Heero's crazy self our 'brane and some freaky other membrane would have been blown back to original possibilities - Otherwise known as 'the big bang'?"

Wufei, the same Wufei that this Duo had always known, stood calmly by the window. Dressed in traditional Chinese clothes, back silk, his silky hair braided. He wore a dragon embroidered eye patch over one eye and a soft smile. "You are surprisingly keen minded when you are drunk."

"I'm not drunk. I'm half way to self-medicated. That's what Sally says I'm doing. I have some guilt that fucks with my head because I blew my lover to hell. Damn bastard always gets to go first." Duo took another drink of his beer. "Fei, why didn't you and I become lovers?"

"Aside from me being a one eyed and very boring mathematician and you being a gundam pilot turned axe wielding recluse, I think it was that you were in love with Yuy from the first time you saw him."

"Shot him then too," Duo said. "Fei, don't talk yourself out of the blow job that I was thinking about giving you."

"As utterly tempting as that is, I was rather hoping to talk to you about a way to undo the last five years, to change the way time has played out. Not only in our world, but also in all the affected worlds."

Duo, looking much less drunk, a big of life coming back into his dark violet eyes. "Save Heero? So I don't shoot his crazy fucker homicidal self?" Duo

"Yes," Wufei said, his voice edged with irritation and maybe a little regret. "I have an inside source, of sorts. There is only one Heero of the mortal kind, one angelic and one shinigami left. The rest are dead. The shinigami's living in your yard. The mortal has a death bans on his head and angelic Heero is not what he seems. "

"Oh, dude, I haven't had enough beer to really get what you're saying. In fact, I might need a couple shots of whiskey. Want some?"

"No, thank you," Wufei said. "Duo, please, listen to me. Please stay clear minded. We have only fifteen days. The membranes are closest on that day and time is easiest to bend. Beyond that there is another issue."

"Oh yeah," Duo took another drink of his beer, but not a long one. He shifted into a sitting position, sitting straighter, looking like the braided general of an army of one than he'd been until the last five years. "What's this other issue?"

"There is another me, and he is going to try to stop us. If the last Heero is slain, then the membranes will move farther apart. This is good for the council, safer for those that have evolved to ride out the collisions and the long times in between them, but bad for those of us who would turn back time and restore all the lives lost."

"Wu, there's way we can bring people back to life," Duo said, eyes sharp, dark glass turning slowly between his fingers.

"We can not bring people back from the dead, but if they never died in the first place, we can simply keep them from dying," Wufei said cryptically. "You called yourself the god of death. Would you face real death gods and gods of life? If it gave you a chance to prevent Heero from dying?"

"Wufei, I'd do anything to save Heero. Just tell me what to do?"

"First… we must find the key that keeps an angel blind. You killed your Heero once to save lives of strangers. Now, I just need you to steal from a Heero you've never met."

Duo grinned, toothy and bright. "OH, I can steal shit. No problem," Duo said, afraid to hope that Heero could be saved after being gone so long. "What about Heero's ghost? That's a shinigami?"

"Yes, and he's as stranded as the angel we need to rescue. Not that they are really angels or shinigami, or demons, for there are those that inspired those names as well. They are simply beings that evolved into niches carved by millennia of living on the membranes. Duo, please do consider, if you do nothing, there are excellent odds that you'll live, our world will live, and these membranes will grow farther and farther apart. If you do as I'm going to ask, the odds are good you will die without success."

"Wu, you've always been such a fucking optimist. I have to try. I'm not living without Heero. What do you get out of all this?"

"What I've always wanted, only better," Wufei said, looking away, dark eyes clouded with that which he was not going to share.

Note: This story's just really screaming at me! smiles I hope it's not too confusing. I should finish it soon.


	8. Chapter 8

Duo 21 ch 8

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I do not own the boys, they're just helping me out a bit as I find this story.

Her smile was deadly, the sharp smile of a predator closing in on prey. "You do not recover during the day. One would think that would be so easy…. for your kind."

Both of them panted, chest fast like racing engines. "Obviously passing judgment is easy enough for you."

Two lines in the braid of the same life; they paused, a momentary stalemate. She was the light with golden hair and twilight eyes, her wings polishing nearer to silver over last thirteen days of nightly fights with the darker bonded shinigami. Or perhaps it was her lover growing more 'angelic' as the days neared to the brane brush by.

The other Duo held airspace above the last living mortal Heero, his katana dancing with a dark chaotic fire, eyes darker to midnight. His hair free of it's braid in spirit form danced a dark cloud of energy drawing around him. His true form more evident as was hers. Small pointed fangs glistened as he smiled, holding his stance. His wings shivered, stretched out, fluttering softly against the high spirit energy concentrated below him.

"I don't judge you! We have been friends! Please, the council chose this path and we must not question," she begged her own wings, such a light silver that it was suddenly obvious she would transition from shinigami to angelic layer soon. "Come home, Shanari," she pleaded, using his spirit name over his physical name.

"There can be no home for me without Heero. My Heero is dead. Your Heero saw to that. I will protect this one and the 'brane."

A flash of dark rippled over the ridges of her wings. "Do you think he's going to love you? Do you think you'll show him your true face? Or do you think you can go back to being mortal? Just tuck up here with him and become the Duo Maxwell that he wanted? Even if you protect the world for this 'brane brush, next time? When your pretty little wings and fangs start showing you for the demon you are? Do you think he wouldn't run screaming about how you're a demon? That's the myth system on this planet now, didn't you know? Demon. He'll kill you for me if he sees you for what you are."

Shanari slowly denied it, his head shaking. "No. He knows already, a little. He's a wonderful Heero, kind and shy and wise and gentle."

"Right," she said, her smile more snarl and the shadowy hint of fangs present before she blinked and pushed back her rush of emotion. "That's why he killed a whole tribe that he blamed for the death of his Duo? Did you know he lowed the ones he felt were directly responsible, some of them, slowly into acid? Where was his mercy then as they begged for death?"

"He didn't do that!"

"Yes, he did," she said. "I can't lie. You know that. And if I did, I'd be just like you. A nasty little spirit vampire trolling around wishing he could be something he's not. You're so tired, Shanari… you can't think clearly. Let me complete the mission of the council and we'll go home. My Heero will welcome you, embrace you, guide you away from the demon you are becoming. You don't want to be a demon, do you?"

"Talk all you want," Shanari-Duo spat. "I like when you talk. Talk all night. Twenty more minutes and your time is up for today."

"Tomorrow will be easier. You're weaker everyday. Time is more on my side than yours. I get seven more tries to kill you," she said and perhaps it was the relaxed way she stood, but he didn't see the deception coming.

With a flick of her wrist a rain of golden serpents dropped towards him. Off balance, he swung, slicing one, but more landed in the swirl of dark forest hair, sucking off energy, returning poison, and Shanari-Duo rolled from his position above Heero, hitting the floor with a very mortal sounding thud. Firy poison shot through his spirit, surging rapidly towards his physical body, to his blood and breath, and he screamed, primal, unable to control the terror as too many points of attack overcame him at once.

The door below opened and a slice of cold cut through their fight. She hissed, teeth grinding. "Angelace!" she spat, curse and warning. With the same flick of her wrist her pets returned to her and she was gone. Shanari-Duo lay, panting, his sword held only in one hand, nose bleeding. The closing of his eyes pushed very mortal salty tears free.

Heero woke from the worst dream he thought he'd ever had, even if he couldn't explain a word of it, couldn't remember a single frame of it. Duo lay on the floor, a rusted and brittle sword held in one hand, his body drawn into a fetal position, clenched in a figure of agony. Hair unbraided and fanned around him like it had rained down after a terrible fall. 

"Duo!" Heart in his mouth, Heero was on his knees by the strange man who was and wasn't his Duo. "Please be okay, please. Tell me how to help you!"

Hands as tender as any mortal can be, he brushed hair back from Duo's face, the delicate almost too pretty face, then ran a thumb over deathly pale lips. There was breath and Heero had to resist the urge to pull the battered body into his arms and hold him safe. "Duo?"

"Heero!" Quatre's voice said, worry and fear lacing the words. "Get back from it!"

Quatre stood in the door way a pistol held in both hands. There was a hardness to him that Heero hadn't seen since the blond had gone insane from using the Zero system. "How did you get in?" 

Heero was good at security, very good, and he was quite sure that Quatre could not get through the security measures he'd taken on the house.

"I had to come and save you," Quatre said. "I know more about what it is now! Heero, please, I'm your friend! You have to trust me!"

Heero's hair stood on end. Demands. Quatre didn't really made demands. Quatre didn't lock eyes with a person and vie for dominance. He either knew he had it, or he made like a sheep to get too close and get it that way. Heero's smile was cold, more of just a not frown. "I trust Quatre."

"I'll show you," Quatre said, moving closer, pistol still held aimed, not at Heero, but at Duo.

Sharnari-Duo's eyes snapped open as Quatre drew closer and shaking, his voice a panicked squeak. Heero's mouth went dry, and then the pistol fired. Not even Heero Yuy is faster than a bullet fired at close range.

Shanari-Duo was though, almost. On his feet, full shinigami form on, long black wings drooping to the floor, light sharp on the deep midnight feathers. Dark hair hung around him, sullen and matte. Breathing hard, lip drawn back in a snarl, revealing ivory fangs, he held his shoulder where the bullet had sliced open shirt and flesh alike. "Angelace! Baricak ad tarick!"

Heero still didn't understand the language Duo spoke, but knew Duo enough to know a curse when he heard one.

The strike came up under Quatre's jaw and a back round house to the side of his head followed, spinning, Heero had Quatre's pistol before the blond even hit the ground, and when Quatre rolled, coming up in a very Chinese fighting stance, Heero felt a solid sense of vindication.

"He needs help!" Quatre yelled, body relaxed even as his jaw turned color.

Heero clicked the safety on the pistol and slipped in the back of his shorts. How he'd gone back to war time clothing since he'd been with Duo again, he wasn't sure why, but the attire was very functional. Without a word he closed on his target.

Quatre rushed him, weight slightly shifted to the right. Heero feinted right as well then ducked, sweeping even as Quatre jumped, going vertical from a forward rush. Heero regained his stance faster than Quatre could regain his feet and delivered a double handed blow to his shoulder, just knocking the blond off his stride. Fluid and ruthless, Heero was on him, steam rolling him to the ground, both arms pushed up behind his back, until one snapped like a cheap straw.

Quatre screamed, vivid and sharp and Heero managed not to break his other arm, even as he pulled him up and slammed his head against the hard wood floor. "Quiet." It was a command, as well as a demand that the now prisoner acknowledge his position.

After a moment of just ragged breathing, Heero, who still had not let go of either arm more than it took not to break the other, spoke, "You are not Quatre. Do not tell me you are. Give info on the bullets you discharged at 02."

"The war is over, Heero!" Quatre's voice pleaded with all due innocence and recrimination. "Let me help you."

"I will break your other arm in three seconds if you do not give me the information I requested. The two seconds start now," Heero said, calm.

"Hanrin naw fieral!" Shanari-Duo begged, staggering towards them, seemingly unbalanced by the wings he couldn't really lift properly.

"Blessed! The bullets were blessed by the hair of an angelic layer Duo form."

"Explain angelic layer Duo form," Heero commanded.

"You should worry about the one you have. He's a Shinigami form and he's going to die if you don't let me help him," Quatre said, smug.

Heero's eyes narrowed and Quatre's other arm snapped between wrist and elbow. As the blond howled, Heero rose from where he straddled him and grabbed the sheet from the bed. This was rendered into a strip in seconds, which then became bindings. "Be still," Heero commanded. If you struggle the fractures may cause bleeding which will lead to your death. Sally will arrive here in approximately two hundred and fifty-eight minutes. If you are calm, you will be alive and she will see that you are given medical treatment. If you seek me out again, I will kill you next time. Is that clear?"

"Clearly," Quatre said, wrong inflection, slight Chinese accent.

Heero stepped over the hogtied form of his former friend and scooped a shaking Duo into his arms, wings and all, holding him close. Duo seemed so much smaller held close, even the wings didn't seem to weigh much, more like flowing black silk shadows. "I will take care of you. Don't be afraid," Heero promised, hoping the shaking man in his arms would understand his tone and voice, if not his words.


	9. Chapter 9

Duo 21

Chapter 9

Note: welcome to the dentist with me. I'm writing from my phone. It'll be too late for you all to hold good thoughts for me that I don't get a root canal, because I'll know by he time you read this. But Keep good thoughts anyway, ne? It's too bad we don't know how to bend time yet.

Nine

Trowa bought a commercial shuttle ticket. The man who had his seat on that flight was very happy. Trowa hoped he stayed that way. Quatre's message had been a good phrase they'd used in the war, during a very bad time. It was a warning not only that Quatre's life was at risk, but that they were at risk of losing the war altogether. Trowa thought they were at peace.

His personal, and unregistered, shuttle was more of a pocket rocket, a one way stealth missile. He'd started building it almost as soon as Quatre had exiled him. Maybe it was that he knew, or hoped that, Quatre would need him to come home sometime.

"Trowa," Li said, setting a light weight amo-box painted with circus elephants down by the 'home shot', "He better be all you said he'd be." Her smile was teasing, gentle. "You know we're family, no matter what, and he's always welcome here. He'll fit right in."

"I don't know if he'd fit in so well, but I know. We're family and nothing will change that, it's just that he's my family too and I have … see what can be done."

"I understand," Trowa said, feeling boxed in, terse. Code words from the war were back. Somehow, the war was back. "Don't wait for me, Li. I don't know what I'm getting into. It's always been part of our deal that you wouldn't wait for me if I had to go away."

"I understand," she said, moving closer to give him a soft kiss, soft and warm against cold and determined. "I trust you and I love you Trowa. Bring this man you love home. I'll love him because you do."

Trowa hesitated just a moment before reaching for her, pulling her trapeze swinging body close and holding her as if she were the last sanity. "Li, you'll love Quatre. I'll convince him, somehow. There is no place better in the Earth Sphere than here. I should have gone to get him before he got himself into trouble."

"Who will feed the lions?" Li asked as Trowa casually picked up the amo-box with the family pistols and ammunition. "What if he's gotten some girl pregnant?"

"Well, that is part of Q's problem. All that money and effort his family put out to get a male heir, and he's not only homosexual, he packed a giant robot between his legs and wiped out all those future Winners."

"Trowa," Li said softly, brushing stubborn brown from his face. "Just go get him. It sounds like he needs family than anything else. I know he loves you, Trowa. He has to. How could he not?"

"Li," Trowa whispered, pulling her tight. "You'll explain to Naomi why you're losing your cover story? She's not as understanding as you are."

"She'll want to kick your ass when you get back, but she's never beaten you yet. She'll understand. She came into this family knowing that we were holding a place for your Q. She can't back out of it now." Li pulled back, eyes shining with emotion she wasn't going to express. "Get your skinny ass out of here. Message me when it's safe."

"Always, My Lady," Trowa whispered, bowing. "Always."

With strong arms he lowered himself into the very stripped down cockpit, muscles toned and defined, to Li he seemed like a lion himself.

She turned and cleared the hanger, as soon as the shield doors shut, she though she heard the Home Shot catch on the launch cables. Before she could let out her breath, he was gone.

"Mama!" Their youngest cried out, running up to Li, "Mama! Where's Daddy?"

"He went to find a very special friend, Sweetheart."

"Is he gonna bring back a little brother? I wanna little brother!"

"Maybe in time," Li said, picking up her daughter. "Maybe in time, my little love

Chang Sanctuary was perhaps the most secure place Trowa had ever decided to break into. He'd almost need a gundam just to get in. It was something he could see Duo doing, riding in on Deathscythe, tipping his hat to the nurse, "Pardon me, M'am, just bust'in out a friend."

Okay, Duo didn't really have a cowboy accent, rather more industrial grunge. It still didn't seem possible that Duo wasn't dead. Trowa's mind wandered from the building plans he'd stolen from Quatre's private server to remember the day he'd gone to Duo's funeral. Dressed in a black turtle neck and slacks, he'd felt as if he had his clown mask on, his face locked in a calm expression he didn't feel. Quatre had clung to him, sobbing, so close that Trowa could feel the beating of his lover's heart, almost feel it breaking.

Heero was a dead man, even though he stood there and threw dirt down onto the empty casket they'd bought for Duo Maxwell. His eyes had seemed like shells, just blue screens to keep up the illusion of life. That was before Heero had killed the gang that had killed Duo.

Being without a real name was something Heero, Duo, and Trowa all had in common. Trowa could remember wondering that day, watching Heero's soulless eyes tracking every moving thing… just who this man would have been if he'd had his own real name, given by some parent that loved him. How he might have been in some other when if he'd never become a perfect killing machine. Maybe even if Duo hadn't died, maybe some of that person Heero might have been could have found himself again.

As the dirt had left his own hand, filtering down six feet to land on polished dark oak the color of Duo's precious braid, he knew as he let that dirt go that Quatre was going to mak him go away. Quatre was the opposite of Heero. Heero had no real name and he was empty. Quatre had such a name and family and he was so full of it that he had no room for whoever he was actually meant to be.

The anniversary of Duo's death, every single year, brought some new layer to this tragedy. Duo was dead. The words of his faith spoken over him by the new Father of Maxwell Church and Trowa wasn't accepting that he'd come back. Wufei's mind had followed very quickly after into some never land that Trowa wasn't even going to try to visit. He had enough never lands of his own.

Heero… as far as Trowa was concerned.. One wanted to be numb when the dentist took out a tooth and when the universe took out Duo, Heero .. well he had a right to be numb and Trowa didn't begrudge him that.

It was Quatre though, that Trowa couldn't leave in peace. Trowa wasn't in peace without him and come broken air locks or solar plunges, Trowa was going to clear out all Quatre's crap and take him home so Quatre could be Quatre.

The small computer scanning the news to Trowa's write blinked in blue light and he left off his musings to note coldly that an earthbound commercial shuttle had suffered engine failure on re-entry. Five hundred and twenty-three lives lost; it was a terrible tragedy. Winner Corporation stated it had been a computer error, terrible accident.

Panic clawed into Trowa. Quatre's message, and from where it had come, and now his worst paranoia confirmed… Maybe Wufei hadn't been lying about high tech creatures, higher evolved, being mistaken for angels and other mythological creatures. If Wufei had been telling the truth, Trowa added magic to the list of things that wouldn't stop him from reaching Quatre. Magic and insanely ruthless Chinese gundam pilots.

Quatre lay very very still on Wufei's bed. The slightest movement, or even change in his breathing could bring an attendant with a shot. It hadn't been like this for Wufei, the real Wufei, Quatre was sure. He'd never have allowed such intrusive treatment. He hadn't even tried to tell them that he wasn't Wufei. His one hope lay in Trowa.

A married Trowa with children and two wives, and a family, a life, that had nothing to do with fighting or the war, or a stupid little man who thought he could control the world if he just worked hard enough for people's good.

He was sure they had temperature sensors that could read everything about him, and they'd know that hot tears were escaping his eyes, sliding over his nose, to cool on the pillow. Wet had soaked under his face, back to his hair, and he couldn't stop.

Confusion in his mind was like a maze. Maybe he really was Wufei.. and he really was insane? No.

He could remember Trowa's arms around him, long fingers in short blond hair. He could remember the way Trowa smelled, sweet and a little like motor oil, like sun warmed cotton, and he could remember the sound of Trowa's voice promising to always love him. Those couldn't be Wufei's memories. They were his memories. Darker memories of the Zero system and destroying a colony of being so afraid that he'd killed the one person he loved. Guilt, shame. Horror. Those were his memories.

When the door slid open with a swoosh, Quatre jumped, rolled, like an ungainly cat in a body suddenly too big and too strong and there, on his hands and knees, he looked up at a doctor, dressed in crisp green scrubs, his brown hair slicked back, eyes a dark forest green, tall, and muscular.

Quatre's arms shook and he looked up, eyes swimming with fresh tears. "Oh thank you!" And then he rushed, arms going around the man who'd just come into his cell. "Thank you for coming! I wasn't sure you'd come! I love you so much! I miss you all the time."

"Quatre?" Trowa whispered. He had redirected the surveilence on the room, but only for a few moments. "Is that really you?"

"Of course it is!" Wufei's face smiled, broad, wide eyes, "Oh, yes, well, I don't look like myself, do I?"

Trowa took a slow breath, an arm going around Wufei's larger and more muscular body, finding it harder than he'd expected, awkward to be pulling Wufei's body close. "Actually, I think if Wufei grinned like that, I think the sun would just blink out. You look very much like yourself, my love. Tell me, which one of is uke though? Tell me what I wished my name was?"

"You're uke and you once wished your name was Sebastian," Quatre whispered. "I really am me. I was afraid I was really Wufei and I'd just gone farther insane!"

"Do you realize your knee is trying to press between mine? That even in this unfamiliar body, holding you.. it's like a thousand times before. You fit to me as only my mask does other wise. We belong together. You are Quatre, uh Chang, now. I love the hair." Trowa grinned, his words flowing like a geyser for him now.

"What about your wife?"

"It's kind of more a family arrangement, a little complicated, but we've been saving you a place," Trowa said, "And we've really got to go. Wufei's being a very bad Quatre."

Hand in hand, years of separation burned up as if they'd never been, 03 and 04 set off together.


	10. Chapter 10

Duo 21

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, or string theory, nope, not Newtonian physics either. No promises of scientific accuracy, nor being real close to any particular mythology system.

"I don't get it," Duo said, rubbing his temple with the ball of his thumb. "There's angels. There's Demons. There's a holy statue that's a thousand years old and it looks like me, and you're in love with it, and you want me to burgle a Heero that thinks he's gonna be god, after he offs a couple more dimensions. Oh, oh, and don't stop me yet," Duo held up a hand, "And in all that robbing of the Heero that thinks he's god, I've got to be real careful not to grow wings and turn into a shinigami for real because I'm prone to that? Wufei, you make sooo much more fucking sense when I'm drunk."

"You do seem a big more clear minded while you're drunk," Wufei admitted. "You have it nearly right, Duo. Our universe exists in…."

Duo held up both hands, eyes closed, "No. Don't try again. I'm not stupid, but I don't get it. Just let me… So, Wufei, these creatures… they're us, but because of where we lived, and the constant ka-bang, some people 'evolved'. Did I mention I'm Catholic, Wu? You know like, and on the 7th day he rested?"

"You don't believe in evolution," Wufei asked, dark eye wide. "Seriously, Duo, this is not a joke."

"Wufei. Sit down. I'm going to the bathroom and I'm going to get some painkiller. Then you're just going to explain how I can stop myself from shooting Heero, because," Duo grimaced tears thick on long lashes, "I find I just can't live with having shot him. And if I have to rob God himself, hail Mary, Mother of God, to get him back, I will. God wouldn't give me this chance if I weren't meant to have it. So you just sit yourself right there, and I'll be right back."

Duo closed the door to the bathroom and leaned against it. His head spun with all the things Wufei had tried to tell him. In the darkness of his bathroom, head against the thin wooden door, it felt like a safe house in the war, just a tiny moment in a swirl of chaos that was going to end his life one way or the other.

"I'm not fifteen," he whispered to himself, pushing off the door and moving to the cabinet above the toilet. Back behind twin stacks of neat white towels was a plastic bag, sealed and rolled tight.

Reverently, Duo pulled it out and sank down to the floor. It had been nearly a year since he opened it. Tears escaped his lashes then, rolling down his face, as he pulled Heero's green tank top from the bag. It was too small to wear for him now. His arms were bigger, chest bigger than they had been when they were fifteen. God, they were still kids, and the damage they did then, it rocked him now.

Rocked him all the way back the ruin of Maxwell Church and he buried his face in Heero's old shirt. He hadn't believed in a god he couldn't see then and he wasn't real sure he did now, but he didn't understand Wufei and he didn't know what else to do. Forehead smashing Heero's shirt to his knees, Duo let himself cry. Everyday for five years he'd been walled in his own silence, trying to find some way to prove to himself that he hadn't had any other choice, that there hadn't been any other way.

And so suddenly, his self imposed silence ended and he didn't know why. If Wufei was on crack, Duo promised himself that he'd let himself use the same gun and send himself on a one way trip to visit Heero. Hell, not that he'd have far to go, what with Heero living in his yard.

Heero. Yard. If that wasn't his Heero, but some other Heero… then what Wufei was saying might be true.. and Heero, his bright blue eyed knight and lover.. he could be saved. Duo's throat closed off and he wiped his tears with Heero's shirt. It didn't really smell like Heero anymore, but it made Duo remember the warmth and hardness of Heero's body. Holding it in one hand, the protective plastic left on the clean swept floor, Duo moved to the medicine chest. He spilled half a bottle of pills on the counter, down the sink, but got two and swallowed them dry.

Wufei's eye went wide as Duo returned to the main room of the cabin. "Don't take this like, as an insult, uh," Duo said, pointing accusingly at Wufei, the green thread worn tank top hanging limp at either end if Duo's fist. "But you got some serious weird story, Wu, and I need some collaborating evidence."

"I can take you to see the angelic form of yourself," Wufei offered, not sure at all that this would solve the problem.

"Hell, do I look like some guy that talks to angels? That's all you. I'm Shinigami, always have been. Stay here. He gets a big testy."

"What are you talking about? Oh," Wufei said, swallowing, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. From what I understand, when a person takes that form of evolution they can be quite dangerous. They seem to eat spirit energy."

"And what do your angels eat, " Duo asked, throwing the door open on a bright spring day. Kindling lay scattered across his porch where it had landed the day before. His axe lay where he'd dropped it. "And I'm dangerous too," Duo shot over his shoulder to Wufei before shutting the door.

The silence was a little much, no birds, just Wufei muttering and pacing, which was a sound that Duo could block out. He'd had practice at blocking that out. "Are you hungry?" Duo asked the empty yard, being careful not to add the 'shithead' that he was thinking about adding. Not that he hadn't called Heero's ghost every name in the book in his mind, anyway.

"Yes," a very Heero like voice whispered, "You can hear me?"

"Yeah," Duo said, the hair electric on the back of his neck. This was like the moment right before he'd take down his cloaking and start shooting the hell out of something. "I wanna talk."

"About time," Heero said, slowly misting into a ghostly form, looking almost exactly like he had in the war, but this Heero had small little fangs pressing into his lower lip.

Duo's stomach flopped. "Yeah, well, I guess I was feeling a little guilty for shooting you and well, you always told me to shut up."

"I never said that to 'my' Duo. I think I would have shot your Heero myself. Of course, It's always nice to kill oneself."

"So you're not the ghost of my Heero?"

"If by ghost you mean flittering meandering soul that just doesn't know where it wants to go, no, no I am not," the Heero said, half snarling and showing off his fang.

Duo's stomach flopped around, but he wasn't going to be intimidated. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you notice?"

"Did you hear what Wufei was telling me?" Duo asked, giving a point to the Shinigami.

"Yes," Heero-shinigami said.

"Is he telling the truth? Is he right?"

"Mostly. One thing his has wrong is that he thinks a depressive whiner like you can steal the soulkey from Heero-Maris. He's going to crush you and then spin you around and make you sing his praises. There is nothing on any of the 'branes more powerful than Heero-Maris. It is said that he found the Godseed and he ate it."

"What's a Godseed?"

Heero shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just a little soul sucker. I only want to go back to my plane and be with my Duo. I just want to go home. I didn't mean to come here. I didn't mean to haunt you, Duo-Rei. I just, I was running from Heero-Maris and I was afraid he'd hurt Duo-Shanari."

"So what's this guy want," Duo asked, violet eyes lighting up with mission planning. "What's he care about?"

"You. He wants every Duo."

"Greedy bastard, but good taste. Isn't there an angelic me?"

"There was," Heero said, leaning forward a little. "He fell in love with angelic Wufei-Mei. The two of them opposed Heero-Maris' plan to eat the Godseed and well, no one's seen them since, but there are rumors that a frozen form of angelic Duo surfacing on some 'branes. That's just rumor, but if your Wufei has found him, then maybe that's true."

"Oh just great, just bloody great," Duo said, leaning against the railing next to shinigami Heero. "I really need to get into another war that's between us, but we're gods. I my Heero back. I can't live without him."

"Shoot yourself then, like you've been thinking about," Heero said, "And then, when your soul leaves your body, some shinigami dogs of his will collect your soul and take you right to be with the most beautiful Heero Yuy you've ever seen. You'll fall to your knees and be so deeply in love you'll never remember that there was another Heero. That's where my Duo is," Heero said, hands tucking under his arms again, as if he were just now really putting the pieces together, "Shanari is happily in the bed of a Heero he can't help but love."

"You know, I ain't that stupid," Duo said, smiling. After all, he was talking to Heero, even if it wasn't his Heero. "I bet your Shanari got himself together and he's looking for you."

"I hope not," Heero said softly. "I'm trapped here. At least with fake memories from the god Heero he'd be happy. I can't go home. You can't really get your Heero back. Shanari is a captive slave somewhere, but at least he doesn't know it."

"Oh, man, I'd always know if I was a slave. So. I'm gonna go kick this Heero's ass. You wanna come with me? Truce, uh? No more throwing solid objects at me?"

"He's going to kill me and enslave you," Heero said.

"Did you have a war in your world? Gundams? Did your Duo have a big black robot to burn chaos all around?"

"When we were mortal," Heero said and his eyes were blue, Heero's blue. "Alright. I'm sorry I haunted you. I just.. well, I guess I liked you thinking I was your Heero."

"How do you feel about Wufei?"

"Good with chocolate sauce," Heero said.

"Do you really eat people?"

"No," Heero said, "Just sexual energy. You have good dreams."

"Oh my god," Duo gasped, cheeks coloring. "You didn't."

"You didn't mind when you thought I was your Heero," Heero said, smirking.

He was so much like the Heero that he knew, not in the war, but after, after a couple years of living together and teasing and sex, great sex, and Duo wanted Heero, wanted him like his soul could tear to tatters if he didn't get him.

The kiss demanded itself. Duo grabbed the mist of Heero's shirt, as if it were solid and in his hand it felt solid, felt warm and living. Then strong fingers moved behind his head and pulled him close. Duo opened, welcoming, as life seemed to pour into him, echo back out of him, and Heero owned his mouth, soft suckling mewling, tongues swirling, lips between teeth and Duo couldn't even breath.

"Maxwell!" Wufei shouted. "What are you doing?"

Duo grinned, crooked and full of hope. "Planning a mission to kick a god's ass. What are you doing? Are you watching me kiss Heero?"

Wufei's cheeks flamed. "Well, actually, technically, that's not really Heero."

"He has an angel bias." Heero laid an arm around Duo's shoulder. Much more solid, he'd fed from Duo, without draining or harming him, just basked in soul willingly shared.

"So you got a thing for angelic Duo?" Duo asked, one chocolate eyebrow arching up. "No wonder you didn't want a blow job from little old mortal me."

"No, no! It's not like that, well, actually, kind of it is, but it's not as if I'd prefer him to you, it's just well, that you're in love with Heero, or Heeroes."

"I'm not in love with this Heero, but he's not half as bad as I was thinking. And Wu, geeze. Are you afraid of sex, or something? How many days do we have to figure out how to take down a Heero that thinks he's a god?"

"So you've accepted what I've told you then?"

"I just kissed a Heero and he's got all his teeth. My Heero was missing the a bicuspid on the left. So how many days?"

"It is frightening that you should think of such details or put your tongue in the mouth of a demon!"

Duo didn't say what he thought Wufei wanted to put into some angel version of himself, but Heero snorted in laughter that cut off too quickly. That laugh, that kiss, and Duo really stared to think he could do it. He could call down divine.. something … and bring Heero back, turn back time. "Maybe I'm a little demon myself. Wu, how many days?"

"Fifteen, but we must cross to another world and take angelic Duo with us. Then we must find our counterparts and convince them to help us. There is another world that has an angelic Duo fragment. If we recombine them, then he will be ready to wake when we have the soulkey."

"So really, we got no time. Wu, you're an angel, really." Duo rolled his eyes and went to start packing. He was really alive again. Miracles do happen. "Come on, Wu! You can cook while I pack."

Heero stepped half way through the cabin wall and looked back to Wufei with a smile, "Well, I can't cook can it? And he's got to be hungry, after a kiss like that."

Wufei twitched and followed them in.


	11. Chapter 11

Duo 21

Chapter 11

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I still don't own them, but I encourage you to buy junk with Heero and Duo on it! Support Gundam Wing, buy models:)

Note: Thank you all for putting up with me! This story is just totally burning a hole in my head! But it's almost done and then I want to do one a short for Duo's Rat too.

Chapter 11

"You're where," Heero asked. The last person he'd expected a call from was Trowa Barton. Well, given that he'd likely broken both of Quatre's arms, maybe that wasn't so very unexpected. "Did you say you're at a salon?"

"Uh," Trowa said, tucking a bit of brown hair behind his own hair. "Sisyphus needed to get a hair cut, and uh, some other stuff."

"He," Heero said, meaning Quatre, otherwise known as Sisyphus, "He shot the reaper and well, I didn't kill him for it."

That was as much of an apology as Heero was going to give, even if Trowa was a very close friend, perhaps Heero's closest.

"Yes, well, about that. It's safe to say that you weren't fighting with the real Sisyphus, but let me explain when we get there?"

"So you're not angry at me?"

"No," Trowa said watching the stylist's progress, "Not at all. I would talk more, but this line is not secure and we've been on it too long as it is."

"Agreed. Do you remember the place I talked about after Siberia? Where we were going to meet for beer?"

"Acknowledged. Trust me. Remember that when we get there. I would never do anything to hurt you."

"I know that. Things really aren't right. It's a different kind of war."

The line went dead and Trowa slipped the prepaid cell phone back into a pocket. It wasn't the most secure line, but being without any contact points was more dangerous.

"How is that," the stylist asked, fluffing just a little at Quatre's now short, slightly curly black hair.

"Oh that's much better," Quatre said, brushing a bit of it back. "Can we do the left eyebrow, just a little more? It's not quite right."

"Of course," his very curvy stylist said, "We can do that and then we can take the wax off your legs, will that be okay sir?"

"Love, am I looking more like myself?" Quatre asked, batting dark eyelashes at Trowa, his smile bright and bubbly.

"You are beautiful," Trowa said, wondering just what Wufei would be thinking of the changes, considering they caught him. As he got Quatre's arms broken, maybe Wufei could just keep the body for a while. Heero tended not to break bones nice and clean like. "I'll keep you as you are."

"Really," Quatre said, his smile freer than Trowa could ever remember it, ever. "You like me better this way?"

"We should hurry. I know where we need to go from here." Part of why Trowa had been willing to stop at a salon and let Quatre cut Wufei's hair, wax his entire body, and whatever else Quatre had had done while Trowa was acquiring travel gear for them… well, at least his love wasn't freaking out too badly about being in someone else's body.

Trowa, himself, was holding back a break down about that. He was rather attached to that body he'd made love to so many times and to have it in the hands of someone who'd attack Heero Yuy directly, and do heaven only knew what else with that sweet little blond body, Trowa was secretly holding down a hurricane of panic.

On top of that, Trowa didn't know how Wufei had done what he did, or when he might undo it and return his Quatre to some body that was completely ruined and lost somewhere in the Earth sphere. Trowa would swear to kill Wufei, even in Quatre's stolen body, if he wasn't sure that wouldn't just cause them to switch back and he'd have his lover's dead body in his hands.

Really, Trowa was quite happy to stop somewhere peaceful and out of time and let Quatre rip all the hair off Wufei's body if he wanted. Trowa laced his fingers behind his head, smiling, as he wondered if Wufei had ever been uke before. There's a first time for everything.

"What are you smirking about," Quatre said, eyes telegraphing worry, self doubt.

Four steps took Trowa his lover's side and a strong hand caressed a face that responsed like Quatre, but was shaped wrong. Running a calloused thumb over one recently perfected eyebrow, Trowa promised, "I love you. I don't care what you look like. And if you must know, I was thinking about cherries."

"Oh," Quatre said, flame bright cheeks even with Wufei's darker skin tone. "Yes, well, that is a very interesting idea, isn't it?"

"Very," Trowa said, his grin partially hidden by hair that wouldn't stay back. "I will tell you everyday who much I love you and I'll never leave you again, no matter what you ask."

"Okay," Quatre said, then impulsively throwing his arms around Trowa's neck and being lifted up out of the chair as Trowa stood. "I just wanted to protect you. I just wanted you to be safe and happy and then I thought I was going to die and I'm so greedy, I just wanted to be with you one more moment and I realized how precious each of those moments I'd lost were."

"I know why you did what you did, Quatre. I understand. Now hurry up with the redecoration so we can go meet up with Heero. Maybe later we'll get a tattoo," Trowa said, whispering in Quatre's ear now, "right on your ass, that says, 'Trowa was here'. How would that be?"

"Oh I love you sooo much!" Quatre said, just about bouncing in the chair.

Standing behind the chair now, holding Quatre's hand, as the stylist finished plucking his eyebrow, Trowa felt less confused than in a long while. This was his Quatre. Still, looking at Wufei's face in the mirror, hair cut short and clinging to his cheeks, eyebrows smoother, wearing slacks and a button up shirt, and Quatre's smile. It was going to be very interesting to explain to Heero. Very.

One thing that Trowa had completely blocked out of his mind was Duo. Duo Maxwell. Best friends here, there, no where. Heero and Duo, even Wufei, had been his friends. Now he had new friends, lovers, more than Quatre, even if Quatre was everthing and oh my god… Duo Maxwell was standing there in front of the old farm house, wearing black, his braid long and his smile perfectly Duo.

"Trowa! Slow down!" Quatre screamed.

Driving, that's right. Trowa stamped on the breaks and their rental car came to a smooth stop, as if Trowa hadn't at all forgotten he was driving when he saw Duo standing there. "You said it wasn't really Duo," Trowa accused, turning to glare at Quatre… who shrugged, giving a sheepish grin with Wufei's mouth and Trowa wasn't sure that he wasn't going to faint. "That's Duo. Oh my god."

The Duo on the stairs rolled his eyes and took a leap from the stairs and hood slide across the front of their car. Smooth, he leaned against the side, one arm hanging over the mirror as Trowa rolled down the window.

"Duo?"

"Good morning," Duo said, then held out a hand, palm up, reaching to touch Trowa's hair. "Fain mirle ninn."

"Duo?" Trowa wasn't any less confused as he got out of the car. A lot of things could happen to a person out there wherever Duo had been and Trowa just wrapped his arms around his friend and pulled him close. The hug was mutual, and Trowa just couldn't stop. No matter that he'd thrown dirt on Duo's casket, here he was, warm and alive. "Oh, Duo where have you been? What happened to you?"

Duo leaned back a little, wrinkled his nose and said, "Eliasara nin Maris-ven."

"He can say good morning," Heero said from where he stood on the stairs wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and a smile, "But he understands most of what you say to him now. I think it's just that he can't speak English outloud for some reason I haven't figured out yet."

"Good morning," Duo said again, wiggling his eyebrows until Trowa started laughing.

"Good morning to you too, you little demon bastard!" Trowa lifted Duo off the ground, hugging him with all his heart.

While that exchange had taken a moment or two, that's about how long it took for Quatre to get up his courage.

"Heero! I'm sorry!" And if Quatre had been a short blond in designer clothes Heero might not have started to reach for his pistol.

"No!" Trowa screamed and Heero hesitated. Quatre pounced and Heero, off balance as he was went over like a b movie karate fall. Heero's eyes were bright as buster canon blasts, his lips parted as if words might happen any second. "It's Quatre!"

His fingers pulled back from the pistol, arms went around his neck and he stumbled under the weight of a very lean and muscular 'Quatre'. They went over like exploding buildings and Heero's hands grabbed at dusty worn wood, trying to back away, or grab something non-lethal. At that point he was open to chance's good graces.

From Heero's point of view it was Wufei hugging him, crying into his shirt, sobbing like a penitent child.

"I'm so sorry I didn't want to trust the new Duo and I'm sorry I wasn't more supportive! I put you at risk when Wufei escaped and I'm so sorry."

It took all Heero's self control not to break the man laying on him, who looked like and smelled like Chang Wufei, sounded like Wufei, a person who had tried to kill him a dozen times. The words and inflections were not Wufei though…. "Quatre?"

"Heero! It's me!" Quatre sat up, and short wavy dark hair framed Quatre's face, the scent of sandalwood and wax. "I know I don't look like myself right now."

"Hi Quatre," Heero said, feeling lightheaded. "You can get off of me now."

"Oh yeah, sorry!" Quatre said, scrambling off of Heero hand holding out his hand to help him up. "Trowa came back to help too!"

"Yes," Heero said, "I can see that."

His attention shifted to Trowa, then to Duo. "Duo? Are you okay? Duo?" Heero called as he ran towards the car where Duo was doubled over, both hands palm down on the warm hood.

Trowa stood back, face strained, but straight.

Duo looked up, eyes red, tears running down his face, jaw clenched. "Good morning, Heero," Duo said through clenched teeth, not laughing, not in the least.

Trowa took a step farther back.

"What? Is he okay," Quatre called from the steps.

Duo mimicked the wide eyed terror look that Heero had had before Quatre tackled him.

Blue eyes narrowed into laser beams, but there was Duo wiggling his eyebrows, a crooked smile on his face.

Heero lost it. Laughing, deep body shaking laughs, Heero sank down by the tire. He held his arm out to the Duo he had and laughed till he cried. If this was insanity - well, it was a damn sight better than fixing office computers.

Duo cuddled up next to him, as if the two of them held some great secret, laughing there by the car.

Quatre looked puzzled and Trowa just smiled and moved to the stairs to take his love in his arms. "There are some things a person just has to work through. I think Heero needs a moment. He's having a little attack. You know how he can't stand being touched. Did you see how you tackled him like that?" Talking. Lots of talking. If you're talking.. you're not laughing.


	12. Chapter 12

Duo 21

Chapter 12

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: If I owned Gundam Wing, tomorrow would be the same as today and all I'd do is sit home and write and draw. As I'm going to get up and take the bus to work, I'm gonna guess I still don't own Gundam Wing and I haven't cooked up something that will sell enough of my own yet. tsk.

Chapter Twelve.

The hall lay open between forest and ocean, a palatial expanse of marble and perfection. It existed between actual 'branes, drawing on energy from many different universes, balancing, harmonizing. There would be peace and safety. Slowly there would more of both and Heero-Maris would slowly educate them, elevate them, until there was no more fear of death and all lives could evolve at death into their angelic form.

As pale as the white marble except for his eyes, he was pure, well intended, satisfied with the sacrifices he'd made. He had saved nearly all incarnations of his Duo, evolved them contentedly into their angelic form. They loved him for it. The rest of humanity would too. Built like a Greek god, body hard and smooth, he wore a white silk toga and golden sandals. This was his Mt. Olympus. It was to be the salvation of everyone. 

It was so near to safety as well. Only one more obstacle and the 'branes in his matrix would be secure and safe forever. Slowly he would redeem the Shinigami as well, bring all into light and peace.

He felt the tingle of the opening rift before it actually opened, and then his favorite pet ran through. There were few golden Duos and fewer female ones. Of those few he'd found, this was the only one that had accepted redemption.

She dropped to her knees, head bowed, wings sagging.

"He lives still," Heero-Maris ground out, furious. As long as that one mortal Heero lived everything could be lost. The hold he held on the council was fragile enough as it was and one single living Heero could cost him everything he'd worked for. Starting over again was not a cheerful thought. "Why, my love?"

"I don't know. Duo-Shanari will not die! He will not listen to reason! You should go to him, my love, remind him of how you redeemed him from being nothing but a soulless shinigami."

"Do I need to remind you of the order of the council? Do you need to hear their judgment again? Duo-Shanari is a fallen angel, too broken to be saved. He does not even fully know who he is. He should be so simple for a powerful soul like yours," Heero-Maris said as he fairly glided across the marble floor to take Duo-Lily's chin between thumb and forefinger. "I can not leave the Palace of Harmony. You must do this small task for me, Duo," he said, using her mortal name, his own eyes swirling into blue visions of her mortal life.

Her breath caught and then she was again in a world torn by death and fire, holding a delicate brown haired girl in her arms, knowing there was no life in the shattered body, "Relena! Don't go! Take me with you! Please!"

Sobs racked her and she struggled against the unyielding, invincible force of Heero-Maris' hold on her chin. "Remember grief and failure, Duo. Remember how you lost everyone you love. Remember how cold and stiff your lover was? She depended on you and you failed her. Your Relena died because she tried to help you, because she wanted to be with you. Your world died in war and suffering, but I healed you. I took you from that and gave you good memories. I have redeemed you. Do you remember what I have redeemed you from now?"

"Yes, my love," Duo-Lily said, shaking where he held her, even as the memories of her distant life faded away. "Thank you so much, my love! I wouldn't fail you."

"I know you will succeed, my love," Heero-Maris said sweetly, his thumb wiping tears from her heart shaped face. "I depend on you. The council depends on you."

The council surrounded him then, layers and layers of them, like an angelic choir with lovely ivory wings, faces full of adoration, violet eyes watching Heero-Maris' every move. Thousands of Duos.

"I will kill him for you, my love! I will slay the demon!"

The chorus around Heero-Maris chattered their encouragement and approval. "And then we will redeem the last three Duos and the council will be complete. Duo-Shanai will return to us. Duo-Rei will be awakened and I will allow time to pass and Duo-Kai die the last breath of his mortal life so he can be redeemed. You must do this for me, Lily. If you fail and Wufei-Nain should complete your task, I will be forced to give Duo-Kai to him, as I have sworn to do so. I can't leave here, Lily. The council needs me. If you fail me, the council will not be complete for years and I am completely loath to give Duo-Kai to a Wufei, no matter how useful he may be to me. "

The council shrank back, hissing in disapproval. Lily paled. She had to succeed! How could she have ever doubted her beautiful and loving master? She would kill Duo-Shanai tonight! No matter what happened.

"Rest now, Lily. Prepare yourself. Tonight is the night of our victory!"

The council swooped down on her, enveloped her in the most wonderful sense of home and belonging. There was only just this lingering sadness and she was sure it had to be for Duo-Shanai who might not ever know this completeness again.

Heero-Maris left the hall in one step. The movement stemmed in his well and took him from the hall to a single moment in time. In mortal time just slightly under five years had passed since this one moment of time.

Duo Maxwell lay pinned under a man three times his size. One hand reached out under a wall of lockers, caught in a shudder, reaching towards the shadow of man who moved too fast to be ordinary. That shadow was all that made it into Heero-Maris' time envelope, that and the man pinning Duo and seemingly very intent on cutting out one of his eyes. Every now and then, Heero-Maris would visit his little refugee from the harsh world and let time move ever so very slowly forward.

It was a horrible mutilating death that awaited this one and Heero-Maris felt such sorrow that he couldn't prevent this pain and suffering before the redemption. Suffering made for a cleaner redemption though.

It was such a sad world. If this had been his original Duo, perhaps he never would have grown to his full potential. This Duo had bought a house for his Heero. The key to the new house was right there in his pocket.

As soon as that Heero died, Heero-Maris would allow this Duo's horrible death to slip into the past and then he would redeem him. It was very sweet to imagine this Duo giving the key to his new house to Heero-Maris, imagining the devotion and love that this wonderful Duo would give him. This one could not be free though, until his Heero was dead.

He brushed sweaty, bloody dark hair away from Duo's battered face and whispered, "Just a few days and it will finish. I will make everything wonderful for you, Duo-Kai. You will be the best of my council, so sweet and loving. You will love me the best of all of them."

It had been so close, so very close. If he'd cast the time envelope one second later, the shadow on the other side of the locker wall would have heard the cry, would have come to the rescue, and then… all would have been lost.

"Just a few more days, my love," Heero-Maris murmured in Duo-Kai's ear. "Then I will wipe the pain all away."


	13. Chapter 13

Duo 21

Chapter 13

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, not in any dimension or on any 'brane, but I do enjoy playing story with them!

Note: There is a side story with a lemon that goes with this story. It's on the 1x2 yahoo mailing list, msgs 99935 and 99968. The side story is about when Duo and Heero were at this cabin that Duo's been living at for a while.

Chapter 13

Silence fell over Duo again as soon as he got into Wufei's car. His Heero and he had found this cabin, made love here, right before the end of the war. The little log building had been Duo's shelter and home. It had been like waiting for Heero to come home.

Silence had been his cloak over the last five years; he understood that now words were his way of marking time, of interacting with the world and if he didn't talk then time didn't exist, the world wasn't real. He wanted to slip into that silence again, to wrap numb around himself like gauze.

"I can't live without Heero," Duo said, head resting against the window.

The ghost in the back seat reached translucent fingers to touch Duo's braid "I'm Heero."

Duo looked back over his shoulder. "I'm not your Duo. You said so yourself."

"Duo?" Wufei asked, concern in his voice. "I know it's a lot to take in. But we are going to save your Heero and the whole world."

"You've never been an optimist, Wu. It's just wrong. And you!" Duo growled at the ghost behind him, " Don't chew on my braid. Asshole."

"But it has so much sexual energy," Heero mumbled as he licked on the tip of Duo's braid.

Wufei looked in the mirror and all he saw was Duo's floating braid tip, moving up and down. His eyes went wide, color in his cheeks. "We will put things right."

The braid dropped and Wufei went back to watching the road very intently.

"So where are we going?"

"Airport, and then to Italy." Dark eyes watched the rear view mirror, twitching to the mirror then back to the road.

"Wu, you found a sacred Japanese statue of 'me' in Italy?" Duo sat up a little and pulled his braid into the front seat.

"I didn't say it was Japanese." Wufei said, offended. "Since you got with Heero, everything has to be Japanese. You don't have any forks at your cabin It's lucky I didn't have to learn Japanese to come talk to you."

Duo pulled his hoodie hood up and curled towards the window. "You sure saving the universe is a good idea?"

"You are depressed, Duo," Wufei said. "I let you alone too long."

"Oh? Who do you think you are? Q's brother now? That everything that's fucked up is your fault? You can hear him, see him, can't you?"

The Heero ghost in the back seat grinned like a cat with a canary in his mouth. Wufei blushed.

"Oh my fucking god," Duo growled, turning in his seat. "You nailed Wufei last night? First you were in my dreams, then you went to his?"

"Just trying to help everyone relax," Heero said, little fangs showing as he smiled, almost managing to look stricken.

"You're not a nice respectable shinigami! You're a fucking incubus! Wu! I don't believe you."

"It was just a dream," Wufei said, eyes very much on the road.

"Right. That's why you can see and hear him directly now," Duo crossed his arms, his hood down over his eyes a little.

"Are you jealous? Of a shinigami spirit who enters dreams? He's not even quite the same species as we are."

"Umph."

"That's not really true. I am the same species. I just evolved when I died."

"How did you die," Duo asked, bracing one foot against the dashboard of Wufei's rental car.

"Zero took damage. We were in space, too far from anywhere. I was in my escape pod, and Duo, my Duo stayed with me. He rigged it so we shared his air and we almost made it back."

"You died together," Duo asked, hoping his hood hide his tears.

"Actually, he died first. There wasn't enough air for two, so he tried to give me all of it. I watched him die from my pod, glass and gundam between us. I miss him."

"He's like you now though, both of you are, uh, incubus?"

"We were. We were together for a long time until Heero-Maris took him away from me. I would have been nicer to you, Duo-Rei, if I didn't know that Heero-Maris was going to take you too."

"Fucking hell. He's not taking me anywhere. I'm going to kick his ass," Duo said, sitting up a little straighter, so that his hood fell back and sunlight fell across dark brown hair too long in winter. "He's caused so many problems. If I can kill my Heero, he hasn't got a chance."

"You'll be happier after he's taken you," Heero whispered.

"How many times do I gotta tell you? No one is making me a slave. No one, not even Heero."

The rest of the trip was rather ribald. It was a commercial trip and Heero wanted to sit in Wufei's lap, and only left them alone when a hansom red headed violinist got up to use the rest room. Duo was pretty sure the guy wasn't going to be sleeping in the bathroom, but he didn't underestimate Heero in any of his forms.

When they arrived, Sally met them at the airport with van. The windows were painted over and Duo had the oddest feeling that he was being abducted.

He got the front seat, with Wufei driving and Sally took up the back. At least she didn't seem to be able to see or talk to the incubus Heero. So Wufei and Duo both refrained from speaking to him. This fact turned out to be highly irritating to the incubus, who took the opportunity to hold a solitary discourse on everything and anything that the two in the front seat liked or didn't like about sex, at least as far as he knew. Duo pulled his hood down, pleaded exhaustion.

It was a three hour trip from Rome to their destination. "I'm going to nap too, Wufei. Will you be okay?"

"No! Um, maybe we could talk. I'm tired too. Wouldn't want me to fall asleep."

"She wants you, 'Fei. She does," Heero said, and proceeded to talk about just how much Sally was interested.

It was a long trip.

Duo actually slept on the trip and had dreams of his own Heero, and oddly of Relena. Though Relena was not the woman who sold them out, but a goddess filled with concern and hope. In the dream she'd promised him healing and restoration. In the dream he'd held his Heero as angelic Relena pulled the bullet from Heero's throat, bathing them both in golden light. It was just a dream, nothing that a person could hold to, but Duo did hold to it. If there even the slightest chance, magical or divine, or anything. Hell, he'd kiss Relena's feet if it would get him his Heero back.

He rubbed an eye and looked out the window. The van was just pulling up beside a remote little church. "It's here? Wu, what were you doing here?"

"Praying," Wufei said, slipping quietly out of the van so as not to wake Sally.

"Praying? You're Buddhist." Duo said, also slipping quietly out of the van, his backpack on one shoulder.

"It was handy," Wufei said, head down as he slipped into the antique building.

"You live in China. What were you doing here?"

A priest, a slight man with shoulder length brown hair and pale blue eyes, rose and turned. Dressed all in black with the white collar, he locked eyes with Wufei and smiled. "Hello, Wu. I'm so glad you came back, but they've taken it."

"Oh my god," Duo groaned. "Praying. Yeah."

"I don't believe I've met you yet," the father said, stepping forward with his hand out. "I'm Father Maxwell."

"Oh that hurts," Duo said, shaking Father Maxwell's hand. "Oh you weren't even alive then, were you?"

"Excuse me," Father Maxwell said, pale eyes full of concern.

Wufei took a deep breath and explained. "This is Duo Maxwell. He was at the Maxwell Church on L2."

"Oh," Father Maxwell said, holding Duo's hand a little tighter. "It is such a great honor to meet you!"

Duo's mouth hung open and his stomach dropped all the way to the pits of Hell. "Hi. You a fan of blowing things up, Father?"

"So modest," Father Maxwell said softly. "I wish the sculpture was still here. It is proof that you are god's messenger."

"Oh yeah," Duo was pretty sure his head was going to implode any moment there. "I gotta go outside."

"Did I offend him?" Duo heard the father asking Wufei.

"Probably, but he's been a touch on edge. Excuse me, Peter."

Wufei found Duo sitting on a rock several meters from the van, his hood pulled up again.

"You are not this fragile. Don't worry. I know where it is. I bugged it."

Violet eyes glared, hope coming back a little. "So where is this thing? How fast can I get started on my mission?"

"Oh, as soon as we find it. We can get the portal open and you can go fetch the soulkey. But, Duo, it may take a little work. Angelic Duo has been taken to the Vatican."

"Oh Wu," Duo said, oddly encouraged by the sheer hopelessness of their quest. "I want to bring Heero back from the dead, and my partner in crime is banging a priest and we have to rob the Vatican. It's a good thing I don't believe in God."

"I thought you said you were Catholic," Wufei said, almost teasing.

"If I'm gonna rob the Vatican to save Heero, I better not be Catholic. It's all so unreal, but there is the Incubus and all. I believe you, Wufei, I do."

"We were just talking, Father Maxwell and I."

"Don't push your luck," Duo said, returning a teasing smirk and maybe, just maybe the depression was really letting go.


	14. Chapter 14

Duo 21

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing… alas.

Notes: Terribly sorry for the lag! bows But the only ending I was imagining involved an Angelic Relena who came to the aid of our boys and helped put everything right… an well, that just wasn't a terribly palatable ending. So then, Heero, the one that the story opened with, got other ideas and so, here we go ☺ . Maybe Relena doesn't have to die anyway. Youji-muse: "But I've already accepted the mission. Are you sure?"

Chapter 14

Heero had more than enough information to think about.

Demons  
Alternative worlds  
Imprisoned  
Brainwashed Duos…

A Duo who wasn't his  
who was still trying to  
save him.

His own Duo  
was  
still  
alive.

Alive.

Heero set the kettle on the stove for tea. The sun lay orange and red, a vivid water color above the pine horizon and Heero found himself wishing to paint it. Just observe and be near the beauty of the horizon. It wasn't mission oriented. There was no goal, no end result in sight. Heero could feel the change internally; feel its permanence.

The problem, the real problem for him, had started with a lie.

It had seemed a simple matter at the time. The world was in crisis and their lives could have ended at any time. He knew nothing of loving or opening to another person. He knew only that he had craved Duo more than even successful missions. He had needed him and his smile, the sound of his even sleepy breath, his safety, he had needed Duo's life more than he had needed his own and this… this had been terrifying.

So he lied to himself. He didn't need Duo. He didn't like Duo. He hated Duo.

And in the war, he'd still shared a safe house with him, sat clicking on his computer close to where Duo slept or played or cried.

After the war, there had been another lie.

It was a more painful lie.

That was that he could not live without Duo. All the pent up alone raged in the other direction and he needed Duo at all costs. The lives he'd taken after Duo's death, the horrible things he'd done to those he considered responsible - if those things didn't make him a demon, he wasn't sure what would. Yet they barely touched the rage and need.

He didn't understand what nonsense Wufei was up to, and having Quatre in Wufei's body, and sitting in Trowa's lap, well, that only made things more surreal, as if the world's logical edges were all set at odd angles. His Duo, no, the Duo who lay sleeping through the kitchen door on the bed that they shared, that Duo… he wasn't his Duo.

As Heero mixed the 'tea' which he planned on serving to this Duo, he watched him sleep. So beautiful, the dark chestnut hair and thick eyelashes, the hard curved muscle of a bare shoulder, and Heero felt his heart understand something of love that he had never imagined.

This Duo had crossed universes and realities to be here, to protect him simply because he looked and sounded, acted, resembled someone that this Duo had loved. It was such a freely given act of compassion and caring that Heero could not deny it. This Duo loved him, him, a virtual stranger, nothing more than a shadow of the person that this Duo had known and loved.

Heero found his heart doing the oddest thing. It became bigger than he'd expected, than he'd ever allowed for. He loved. This Duo, who wasn't his, and Quatre who was so kind and confused and looking very Chinese, and Trowa who was steady and compassionate, understanding, and he loved… the sunset and the little brown birds outside their window, and he loved this man standing here in the kitchen with big hands and unruly brown hair, whose heart felt like it was still the heart of a child.

He hoped the others would understand. He hoped someday he'd understand why his soul told him this was the right path to take.

"Heero?" Quatre asked, making Wufei's voice soft and polite, gentle. "Are you okay?

"Yes, I am fine. Have some tea, Quatre? I made dinner. Please, come eat with me, but go and get Trowa. We'll all eat together."

"Why does this feel like a last meal," Trowa asked, a hand around Quatre's shoulders.

"Because you have a morbid imagination," Heero asked, smiling almost playfully. "Is it that unusual that I cook for everyone?"

"Yes," Trowa said, lifting a cover from a bowl. "Hummus?"

"It smells delicious!"

"Barin nin, verilar," Duo said from the doorway, wearing just jeans and his braid. He was more rested now, having taken to sleeping in the day.

Heero smiled and held out his hand. Duo crossed and took it. They smiled at each other and Quatre was suddenly very interested in pouring Trowa some tea.

The meal was spent chattering, silly stupid things that close friends talk about.

Wufei had totally been a virgin. His system was much cleaner now and much more relaxed. Yeah. They were really going to get that tattoo.. "Trowa was here."

Quatre's blush was much darker on Wufei's skin, a dusty rose, with silky black hair falling over dark eyes that were full of light and mischief.

Heero talked about wanting to paint the sunset, about how sunsets seem so inevitable, so beautiful. 

Duo sang for them, haunting, beautiful, alien, so unlike the Duo they'd known, and yet so ethereal and beautiful, in a language that Heero's computer could translate, but no computer can really pull out layers of meaning in a song.

Dinner lasted forever that night. There were beers and a cake and close to eleven, Heero brought out a bottle of champagne. Old, the label tattered, he held it up with a smile.

"Where did you get that," Trowa asked, curious.

"Bought it a while ago," he said, and that was the truth. He'd planned it for something else though. Duo loved champagne. Like beer and pop mixed. "A toast to us?"

Heero also had found four flutes in the cupboard and he passed them around, sparkling crystal, some hold over of the war, maybe meant for someone's last drink that they never got time for.

"To us!" Quatre said as golden promise filled his glass.

Trowa tilted his head and watched Heero closely as he filled the glass Trowa held, but Heero just smiled. As he filled Duo's glass, he leaned to give him a kiss on the cheek. He held his own glass high, filled with golden dancing bubbles. "To us, to always taking the path of truth."

Glasses clicked. Quatre giggled, tipsy and leaning against Trowa. All the glasses tilted. Trowa and Heero's eyes locked and Heero thought time was going to slow down and stop right there, but the Trowa swallowed.

Heero reached out a hand to touch Duo's shoulder, to slip his hand around his shoulder and draw him close, as he set his own glass back on the table, untouched. Quatre dropped his, head tilting back. Trowa caught him, arms around him as Trowa slipped from his chair to one knee.

"I don't feel good, Trowa."

"I'm here, Quatre. I'm here," he promised, but they were both going towards the floor.

Heero scooted Duo's chair back with a foot and lifted him, head on his shoulder, a arm under his legs. Duo's breath was deep, a sleep so deep not even a death of a loved one could break it.

He laid Duo back on the bed and moved to uncover a cloth on the antique dresser. Two syringes. If one were going to fight the dead, one had to do it on their own level.


	15. Chapter 15

Duo 21

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer:

I don't own Gundam Wing.

Warnings: profanity, suicidal themes

Heero knelt by the bed, a hand gliding caressingly over Duo's cheek. It was hard to imagine what this man's history really was, so close to his Duo's and yet so not. He could… he could just leave the syringe alone and hold this man, just be with him when he woke and explain, just go back to the house he owned, but could not remember buying. They'd get a dog and he'd take Duo to the park.

They'd get married the way Heero had imagined secretly so many times, taking Duo's hand and pledging forever, promising to always be with him, to always love him. Tears stung Heero's eyes as he brushed soft brown silk away from Duo's face. Maybe Duo could be happy here. Live a life that he'd maybe lost somewhere else. Find another love who would stand up with him at an alter and pledge forever.

Duo drew a deeper breath, lips parting, and as if he'd exhaled some ancient gnosis, Heero felt like he breathed it in, and he saw Duo in a space suit, felt himself in another and both clinging to each other in the fading heat of their dying power sources. Perhaps it was the dream of this Duo, speaking to his Heero in words that this Heero didn't understand, but he knew the love and wicked looking violet eyes.

Heero wondered how many times, in how many universes, they'd been lovers, if maybe their souls were so closely entwined that they would always find each other. He hoped so.

Then, against all probability, Duo's eyes cracked open. "Not twenty-one," Duo groaned, as if that obscure fact would make circumstances different.

"But I know how I can fix everything," Heero said, his words coming out in the strange language that Duo had been speaking all along. "I don't know how, but I know."

"Can't. Heero. Listen," Duo rolled, body heavy from the drug Heero had given him, so he flopped like a rag doll that didn't know it couldn't just reach out. "Too…. go bang…"

Heero smirked. Drugged or not, Duo's expressions were so charming. He didn't understand what his braided friend was trying to tell him, but there was such a rush of warmth for him, such an abiding deep current of love. "No, I understand. I understand so many things now. I saw your Heero. I know about the council, I Know. I don't know how, but I'm not insane. Duo, trust me."

"Arrogant," Duo wheezed, one hand lifting, then moving to fast, only to smack down against Duo's face when he'd been meaning to reach for Heero's shirt. "Piss head!"

Heero moved back out of reach, stood. A drugged and pissed of Duo was still a pissed off Duo and Heero had a deep certainty that this Duo was not truly a living human Duo anyway. Though the definition of human was changing as knowledge seemed to pour into his head.

It had been like this, almost, when he'd punished those who had killed his Duo. Knowing their movements before they made them, their locations, their thoughts. Now, as if time had slowed and opened to him, he could reach back in those memories and see the their fears, their hopes, see the dreams of those he'd killed so horrifically and for the first time he … regretted killing them.

"You're so cute when you're angry," Heero taunted affectionately, "Like a little angry kitten."

"Kick. Your. Ass!" Duo growled, eyes about rolling back into his head. "Not god."

"No," Heero agreed. "I'm not a god. I'm just a man, but you have taught me something other incarnations of me may not have understood. I know so much more than I did even a moment ago, but I can't explain this thing you've taught me. Maybe it's that to love you is not to possess you."

"Bullshit," Duo wheezed, flopping over on his side again, one arm reaching for the floor. "Com'ere!"

"I'm afraid I have a different plan, Duo-kun," Heero said, picking up the syringe and the bottle of lethal drug. "I'm not going to let you fight alone and I can't evolve while this body is alive."

"No, Heero! Don't," Duo pleaded, sliding off the bed, his body too heavy, to drugged to move as he commanded, even as he fought his way out of the haze. "Please, Heero. You're the last Heero! If you die, that's all He wants and he'll be unstoppable. Please, Heero. Don't do this."

Meticulous, Heero tapped the last bit of air out of the clear fluid in the syringe. "He wants me dead. Not evolved. By killing me before I attained understanding, he could have achieved that. I have no intention of dying so easily."

"Insane bastard!" On his hands and knees, braid still clinging to the bed, Duo lifted a tear lined face. "Your life matters! You matter as a man, as a person. Please, Heero, don't be stupid. I fought for life with every last ounce of my will. I've been fighting for your life! You can't evolve this way."

Heero flexed his fist, raising a vein. "Love. That's what makes us. Giving love. Truth in love. I'm glad I'm alive today to save you because I am going to save you."

"You're confused! Don't do this! This entire thread will go if you evolve badly! Big bang! Don't kill yourself. Self destructing was stupid before and it's no fucking better now!"

"But Duo," Heero said, depressing the plunger, "I'm not suicidal."

The drugs hit his system almost immediately, seizing up his heart. Distantly he heard Duo's howl, and Trowa's cursing. He'd really gone easy on the drugs, for fear of hurting anyone them and well, maybe he'd gone too light.

He almost felt as if he were in two places at once as Duo's strong arms caught his falling body and yet, he was still standing, feeling stronger than he'd ever felt. He blinked, and then, well, it wasn't Duo that had caught him, but Trowa, and in Trowa's arms, he thought he looked so skinny and fragile, head tilted back.

Wufei was on his knees, tears falling from dark eyes, and Heero smiled. So Quatre. He wanted to reach out to him and promise that everything would be okay. That this was just a step towards fixing everything, but his body wouldn't move and even as he touched one of the tears on Quatre's cheek, his fingers passed right through.

"Oh now you've done it, you stupid fucker!" Duo growled.

Duo's body lay on the floor, no longer breathing, one hand stretched out towards Heero's body, but whatever was left from his body stood very angrily above it. Black leather and dark fiery eyes, his wings were typical black demon wings, as if he'd become the embodiment of Deathscythe.

Heero looked over his shoulder and turned slowly, feeling that power well up from within him. His own wings spread out, floor to ceiling, soft feathers of storm cloud grey, not white, not angelic, not demonic, something on a middle path. In either hand he held cold blue flaming swords that matched the flames in his eyes.

Duo's mouth dropped open. "Heero."

"What did you expect from an angel in love with a demon? We need to put things right."

Duo's smile showed the typical shinigami fangs, the native Duo cockiness. "A little truth for a man who would be god? Just like old times!"

Heero smiled, and it wasn't like old times at all, really. This was entirely new. He wasn't the perfect solider anymore. He wasn't perfect. Perfect soldiers were not this comfortable with being so much in love.


End file.
